It would not be wrong to say that the military is holding our nation hostage to its vested interests. Our countryâ€™s survival is at stake but there seems to be no visible shift in the militaryâ€™s posture

On May 22, reports broke out late night that Pakistan Naval Station (PNS) Mehran in Karachi had been attacked by terrorists. When images of the attack on the naval airbase started streaming on our television screens, no one was left unaffected by its horror. At least 10 soldiers were martyred in the ensuing fight, with 15 injured. Grenades, rockets, gunfire, suicide vests â€” the terrorists resorted to everything. That this attack was the result of a huge security lapse cannot be denied. Four attacks (two on April 26) against the naval forces within a month; the latest one carried out despite warnings of such an attack in recent intelligence reports. The PNS Mehran attack was reminiscent of the GHQ attack back in October 2009. Such attacks cannot take place without help from the â€˜insideâ€™. This should be a cause for worry. If elements within our armed forces are aiding the terrorists in carrying out attacks against the security forces, they need to be identified and dealt with.

The operation to secure the naval airbase ended after more than 15 hours. There was no â€˜joyâ€™ in this â€˜victoryâ€™. There was only sorrow. Our brave jawans, firefighters and Rangers who laid down their lives to make this operation a success must be saluted. And those responsible for the attack must be condemned unequivocally. Interior Minister Rehman Malik did not mince any words when he called on those mourning Osama bin Ladenâ€™s death and sympathising with the Taliban to have mercy on Pakistan and realise who our real enemy is. One simply cannot comprehend how some of our â€˜leadersâ€™ continue to say this is not our war even though we have lost more than 30,000 civilian lives in terrorist attacks and thousands of soldiers have been martyred in the war on terror.

Why is it so difficult to denounce the Taliban, al Qaeda and other terrorist organisations for some people? The same people are ready to point fingers at the ubiquitous â€˜foreign handâ€™ as soon as a terrorist attack takes place. Yet these very people are found wanting when it comes to condemning the terrorists operating from our soil.

On top of all this, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are revered in Pakistan despite the fact that, as per WikiLeaks, â€œfinancial support estimated at nearly $ 100 million annually was making its way to Deobandi and Ahl-e-Hadith clerics in south Punjab from organisations in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, ostensibly with the direct support of those governments.â€ Most of our leaders will either deny these reports or ignore them. The petro-dollars coming from our Arab masters are apparently worth far more than the lives of innocent Pakistanis.

There are many reasons why most people in Pakistan continue to live in denial but the main one is our security paradigm. For decades we have been fed lies by our military. The military has overtly and covertly supported terrorist networks. A large chunk of our budget goes to defence without anyone questioning our armed forces on where it is spent. Between loan repayments and the defence budget, hardly any money is left to be spent on education, healthcare, development, etc. India is made out to be enemy number one. To counter the â€˜Indian threatâ€™, we need the vile Taliban on our side in Afghanistan since they are our â€œstrategic assetsâ€; we nurture terrorist organisations like the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT) to carry out militant jihad in Indian Kashmir and cross-border attacks inside India; we are soon going to be â€œthe worldâ€™s fifth largest nuclear weapons powerâ€ as per some reports. Lest we forget, we have lost all official and unofficial wars against India (most of which, by the way, were started by Pakistan). An atomic bomb and stockpiles of nuclear weapons is no guarantee that we can win in the unlikely event of another war. The only reason why our military has kept this threat perception alive is because it is hard for them to part with the moolah that keeps coming their way and the power they wield over this country. It would not be wrong to say that the military is holding our nation hostage to its vested interests. Our countryâ€™s survival is at stake but there seems to be no visible shift in the militaryâ€™s posture.

The Pakistan militaryâ€™s double game in the war on terror was never a secret yet the US kept pouring in billions of dollars in military aid to secure our help in the war on terror. Young soldiers continue to sacrifice their lives in combat and terrorist attacks because of the flawed policies of the military establishment.

The day Osama bin Laden was killed in Abbottabad by the US, the worldâ€™s suspicions were confirmed. Our intelligence agencies claimed incompetence, but not many buy this excuse, given how bin Laden was living in such close proximity to the Pakistan Military Academy. The world turned on our military and intelligence agencies but our government chose to give them a clean chit. Mian Nawaz Sharif, for whatever reasons, was the only one who took a principled stance as far as civil-military relations were concerned but he found no takers in the current democratic set-up who stood by him. After decades our civilian leadership had a golden opportunity to take the military to task but in order to pursue their political interests, the government and its allies let them off scot-free.

The problem is that, however much we try to hide our flaws, the world is not blind. Our security establishment cannot keep on harbouring terrorists. It is time to wake up to the reality that we cannot go on like this forever because it is a sure-shot recipe for self-destruction.

Pakistanâ€™s name has been tarnished by those who claim to be our â€˜guardiansâ€™ and â€˜protectorsâ€™. As Pakistanis, we must vow not to let anyone wreak havoc in the name of â€˜strategic depthâ€™. Victor Jara, a Chilean political activist and revolutionary poet, was arrested and taken to the Chile Stadium in September 1973 following a military coup. He wrote a poem â€” â€˜Estadio Chileâ€™ â€” which spoke of the horror in front of him. His words, though written in a different context, haunt me every time a terrorist attack takes place:

â€œHow hard it is to sing,

When I must sing of horror.

Horror which I am living,

Horror which I am dying.â€

Pakistanis are living and dying a horror of which we must all sing. Letâ€™s stop this horror now. It may take years but we must break our silence and speak the truth for once.

What does Pakistan need? Nation building or counter-terrorism. The greedy ones will say both. And they are right. But both can not happen simultaneously. There arenâ€™t enough resources available in Pakistan to undertake nation building immediately. Nation building has to be a long-term goal for the Pakistani society while counter-terrorism is what the Pakistani State must undertake immediately. However this duality gives rise to a dichotomous situation.

Counter-terrorism would obviously mean devolving more powers to the military â€” making it bigger, stronger and more powerful. But a more powerful military is then not going to give up that power on its own, or undertake anything which will reduce its importance in the system.The short-term task of counter-terrorism is likely to render the long-term goal of nation-building untenable.

Furthermore, a stronger military is a drain on the Pakistani exchequer and shifts resources away from the project of nation building. In fact, Pakistan canâ€™t economically afford its current-day military, leave alone a more powerful one. Besides the economic unviability, the torque applied to the military by its overt allies (US, Saudi Arabia and China) and the overt enemies (al Qaeda and Taliban) has deformed Pakistani society into an ugly shape. The chastising experience of a strong military intervention in 1971 in the erstwhile East Pakistan raises questions about the political sagacity of employing the military for internal security duties.

If Pakistani military undertakes counter-terrorism in full earnest, its social, political and economic costs are unaffordable for Pakistani nation, its state and society.

This is the paradox of Pakistan. Pakistan needs a strong military to survive. The costs incurred in maintaining a strong military weaken the Pakistani state and society. A weaker Pakistan needs an even stronger military to hold up. The damaging cycle is self-perpetuating.

Something has to give at some point. Unless this cycle can be broken. How? There are no easy answers.
Ah, and do not forget to factor in the jehadis and the nukes, and the danger of their mating, in any solution you propose

Pakistan need's peace with india so it can then mobilise it's forces to crush the real enemy within it's own border's. However the small interests of a few will hold back the entire country,who still wish to cause mayhem outside pakistan.

The media can do a fantastic job of bringing home the reality of choices left for them and the stark warning's of oblivion if they carry on as before.

The people of pakistan are very docile until they've been riled ,but with there poor education and inability to accept fact over fiction its hard to see a happy ending for them.

8-12billion usd a year, a country with gdp worth 175b usd to rule all unopposed, with 180million creatures quite literally blindly worshiping you are too much of goodies to part with to even think about a better future for pakistan, to hell with peace with india, and to hell with the talk of a progressive pakistan, nincompoops these "bloody" civilians are, and what is it that they take us for? is what the pak army must be thinking, and yes only a fool would let go all that and for what? a progressive pakistan .......................... oh come on, dont you have better things to think of ....................... only in your dreams ................. you .... you ........!